taphor at all. It was not Paul who lived, but Chrift lived in him, in the strictest and moft proper fenfe; and more fo than the wifeft of us, in our prefent ftate, are capable of apprehending.

I was faying, to live to God is to devote ourselves to him, and his work and fervice. And if any fhould put the queftion the Jews put to our Lord, John vi. 28. "What shall we do that we may work the "works of God?" we have his answer to it who certainly best understood it, "This is "the work of God, that ye believe on him "whom he hath fent." This is the only

way that man can do any thing for God; and all that the best believers do, or can do, is but giving him the glory due unto his name, and acknowledging his grace. And this is the fingular specialty of his service, that all the profit of their labour redounds to themselves. Their master needs none, and can receive none. The Apostle understood his master's direction: The life he lived in the flesh was, he says, by the faith of the Son of God: and where this is wanting, all that can be done without it, is but affronting God in the basest manner; for what the Apostle fays is e

vident in the nature of the thing: "He that "believes not his teftimony, or record,

concerning his Son, makes him a liar,” and treats him as fuch.

Whoever has fo far confidered this teftimony, as to know any thing of Christ, cannot miss to find in him the highest evidence God could give of his love to the world; and that he has stated it in fuch a manner, that no one perfon has more or less reafon than another to believe it. All who hear it, are called, are commanded, to believe in him whom he hath fent; and all have equal encouragement and affurance of fuccefs in this way, infomuch that, strictly and properly, faith is no more but the application of the general declarations in the teftimony to one's felf. Thus we fee the Apostle took it; and fets an example to us. He does not pretend any particular revelation of the love of God, and his everbleffed Son, to himself more than to others; nor did he need any; and therefore pleases himself with a conclufion, arising so naturally and neceffarily from the truth as it is in Jefus; and concludes with the strongest confidence of faith, who loved me, and gave himself for me. And the

Apostle

Apoftle has taught us, in the instance of Abraham, Rom. iv. 20. that the stronger one's faith, and the lefs wavering and doubting, the greater is the glory the believer gives to God. The whole gofpel speaks the fame language that Chrift did to Jairus in a very defperate-like cafe, Fear not; only believe. And it would be much to our advantage, that we put to ourselves the queftion Jefus put to Peter, when, to all human fenfe and reafon, he was inevitably to be swallowed up in the raging fea. Our Lord had, at his own request, bid him come to him, walking on the water: but though he ventured boldly, and set out fair, he was afraid, and begun to fink: 0 thou of little faith, faid his master, wherefore didft thou doubt? He could find no reafon; and lefs, if poffible, will any one find in this cafe, who takes in the whole truth as it is in Jefus.

I know not how it hath happened, that many, even serious people, not only do in fact, but have even been taught, to foothe them felves in the want of this affurance of faith; as if it were their unhappinefs, but not their fin. But furely they must be egregioufly mistaken who make VOL. III. fuch

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fuch a conclufion: for nothing can be more certain, than that fo much as there is of abatement of the moft perfect confidence of faith, fo much there is of unbelief, Rom. v. 20. and I hope no body will fay that is no fin. It is true, there may be faith where there is much doubting; nay, one may fay, there can be no doubting where there is not fome faith but weak faith cannot fail to make a weak Chriftian. And if the Apoftle John's account of the rife and progress of the love of God in the heart of man, (which, by the way, is really writing the law of God there), may be credited, just so far as the love of God to us is known and believed, fo far will this law of love be planted and rooted in the heart; for we love him, because he first loved us," 1 John iv. 19. So very ill-grounded, and indeed very foolish, is the cant which has been echoed from mouth to mouth ever fince the Apostle's days, that preaching faith in Chrift, and the free fovereign grace of God in him, is prejudicial to the practice of holiness, and tends to foothe people in a courfe of fin. Surely the love of God

is holiness, and perfect love is perfect holinefs for all the duties God has commanded are no other than the native exercifes and actings of it, and what perfect love would perform though they had never been commanded.

But high as this apoftle was exalted, and fo nearly united to Chrift, as to be one fpirit, and to have one life with him, and thence of courfe to live by Christ living in him; yet he was still in the flesh; not as men naturally are, who cannot pleafe God fo long as they continue in that state; but he was in the body, and therefore abfent from the Lord, as it is written, 2 Cor. v. 6. This vail of flefh hides the fpiritual world from us; so that we muft either depend on the report God has condefcended to make of the state of that world, or be altogether ignorant of it. "We walk by faith, not by fight:" and thus the Apostle tells us, that the whole of his living was by the faith of the Son of God, who loved him, and gave himself for

him.

By this expreffion, the faith of the Son of God, may be understood Christ's perfonal faith, as it cannot be doubted that the man Jefus,

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